President's Column

2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the King William Association! This is an accomplishment of which we should all be extremely proud! We are one the oldest neighborhood associations and we should celebrate the accomplishments we have achieved over the past half century!

Our 50th year celebration was kicked off in December with the home tour and holiday fair. Kudos to home tour and fair organizers for a job well done, even through terrible weather! Unfortunately, we had heavy rain and cold weather on the day of the home tour. Despite this, 273 people attended and we broke even. KWA had not held a combined home tour and fair since 1991.

Greetings everyone! The holiday season is upon us and we are approaching the end of 2016!

Last month, the City of San Antonio introduced the new downtown parking initiative, which will bring some significant changes to the neighborhood. I hope you had an opportunity to attend the parking meetings held during November, as this represents a considerable change to resident and business parking in our neighborhood. If you have any questions or concerns, please address them to the city.

Looking forward, in 2017 the City has a bond election slated for the spring that could have a significant impact on King William/Lavaca and the surrounding area. The KWA board reviewed projects recommended by City staff for inclusion in the bond election, and voted to support the following projects:

It is a privilege to have been elected as president of the King William Association. I am looking forward to working with our Executive Director Cherise Bell and the newly-elected board to address the issues facing our neighborhood. Our board leadership for 2016-2017 is composed of Vice President Gretchen Kragh, Treasurer Charlotte Luongo, Secretary Patricia Duarte and Parliamentarian Brad Shaw.

We met in September to create an agenda and prioritize the issues we will be tackling this year. I will provide more details in the next newsletter. In the meantime, please feel free to contact the KWA office with any of your concerns. Again, I look forward to working with you all for a great year ahead!

Thanks to all of you who have welcomed my leadership with open arms. I am excited and energized to embrace the task of leading this wonderful neighborhood association! I want to thank Harry Shafer for his strong leadership over the past two years. He has done an outstanding job in positioning the organization for the future.

I want to also take this opportunity to thank the members who have recently left the board: Anne Alexander, Annice Hill, Jessie Simpson, Patrick Conroy and Curtis Johnson. They have served our organization well and we appreciate their strong efforts.

Next, I want to thank the returning board members: Beth Davis, Patty Duarte, Josephine Garcia, Charlotte Luongo, Ethel Pedraza, Bradley Toland and Christine Viña. In addition, I would like to welcome all the new board members: Shawn Campbell, Gretchen Kragh, Erich Landry, Monika Maeckle, Betsy Schultz, Brad Shaw and Amanda Strickland. I thank you all for your commitment to our organization, and I am excited to work with you over the next year to lead this organization.

My vision for this year’s board is to develop a strong cohesive organization, building upon the accomplishments of our previous boards, that will lead the King William Association into the next phase. Change is inevitable for our neighborhood as Southtown becomes a more and more desirable place to live. Stopping change is not realistic and counterproductive. My goal is to navigate our organization through these changes, being proactive, not reactive, in managing our growth, so that we can remain the desired neighborhood that we all loved when we moved here.

This being my last post as president, I want to highlight some of the accomplishments this past year on big ticket items that affect our neighborhood. The efforts of the King William-Lavaca Parking and Transportation Committee chaired by Rose Kanusky have born fruit. Our meetings with the City Manager’s staff, City Center Development Office, and Transportation and Capital Improvements Department resulted in the city hiring an outside consultant, Amy Avery of Kimley-Horn Engineers, to make a thorough study of the parking and transportation issues in King William and Lavaca. We combined the two neighborhoods because we share the same parking issues and are impacted by events in each other’s neighborhoods. The consultant’s study has taken a year to complete, and has not been released, but a draft summary was presented at our committee meeting. The City will be implementing some of the recommendations as early as October. These new parking and transportation changes will be explained in forthcoming public meetings offered by the city.